There has long been known a method for preparing a snack food by subjecting dough for snack foods to puffing through an oil-frying treatment. According to this method for oil-frying a snack dough, the resulting snack food would have a smooth and easy melting ability in the mouth because of the presence of oils and fats used for the oil-frying treatment. However, such a conventional snack food suffers from various problems. For instance, it leaves a bad aftertaste in the mouth because it has a heavy or greasy taste of the oils and fats used for oil-frying; and the snack food would absorb a large quantity of oils an fats during the oil-frying step. Moreover, it has a high content of an oil and fat component, and accordingly, such a conventional snack food would not be appropriate for the recent health-oriented purpose.
To solve the foregoing problems associated with the conventional oil-frying method, there has been proposed a method comprising the steps of puffing dough for snack foods by hot-air drying and then incorporating a small amount of oils and fats into the hot air-dried snack dough. However, the snack food thus prepared has still left a bad aftertaste in the mouth and has thus still been insufficient in the flavor and taste.